1)Where are you located? San Francisco, CA 2) How old are you? 27 3) What is your job title? I guess I have a few job titles: doctoral student, student therapist, researcher, and fitness class instructor. I am a graduate student in clinical psychology, which means that I balance my time (and my title) between school, research, and clinical work as a therapist in an outpatient mental health clinic. Plus, I work as an instructor at a boutique fitness studio, which I do because it’s fun, keeps me feeling strong and capable, allows me to be a part of an awesome community of people, and provides me a little much-needed income. 4) How has the transition been from backpack to briefcase (college to adulthood)? Trading in backpack for briefcase was the easy part. I had a job lined up as an early childhood educator at a fancy preschool straight out of college. I settled into being a young professional with an 8-5 schedule, a savings account, a group of work friends, and a 401k. My favorite thing about the transition from college to working was that weekends were suddenly a real thing! Work was going extremely well – I learned how to be a professional and how to learn and develop in a workplace. I got a big promotion and I got to present at a national educator conference in front of hundreds of people. However, the most important thing I learned from my first job was that I didn’t want it to become my lifelong career. I struggled with this knowledge for a year – weighing the risk of giving up a good, stable job against the value of pursuing the promise of an undefined dream career. As a teacher, I loved working one-on-one with children experiencing social, emotional, and behavioral problems. The other teachers used to joke that small, troubled boys always found their way to me. My excitement for working with people in distress percolated around in my brain – shaped by experiences, conversations, and off-handed thoughts. Over time and through a process I still don’t completely understand, I started to identify a path forward for myself. I decided to apply to doctoral programs in clinical psychology. This decision was exciting and terrifying. My entire first year of graduate school was a huge question mark in my brain that kept asking, “Are you sure you did the right thing? Are these 5 intense years of school and mountains of student loans going to give you what you want?” I stuck it out. I’m now at the end of my second year, I have a year of clinical work with real patients under my belt, and I am now so excited to keep moving toward a career as a psychotherapist. Life is a series of decisions. Decisions are hard and scary and you don’t always know how they’re going to turn out until weeks or months or years later. My journey has been about empowering myself to choose my own path forward and to walk it with enough conviction to keep going and enough confidence to know that I’ll make it through. 5) When you were in school, did you imagine your life the way that it is? At the time I made the transition from backpack to briefcase, I was in a long-term relationship with my college boyfriend. I moved in with him, started feeling like a grown-up, and saw the future unfolding in front of me. We decorated an apartment, bought plants, had friends over for dinner parties, and visited each other’s families for holidays. There was a lot of momentum moving the relationship forward toward an elaborate proposal,...

1)Where are you located? Palo Alto, California 2) How old are you? 27 3) What is your job title? Resident Physician in Orthopedic Surgery 4) How has the transition been from backpack to briefcase (college to adulthood)? In many ways, I’m still in the midst of that transition – you could say I’m at “messenger bag” level, part way between backpack and briefcase. In the medical field, the transition to adulthood is often a fairly gradual one. After college, we have another four years of medical school. And then there’s residency, which is a job, but it’s one based in training and continued studies. So I’m currently working as a physician but I am still a student in many ways. Just this year I’ve made a lot of exciting “adult” transitions that most of my friends made 4 or more years ago. I now live on my own, in my own apartment, paying my own bills, getting my own paycheck. It’s not the most glamorous part of adulthood, but I remember the first night in my new apartment – to be in my own place, that I decorated and filled with my own furniture – I couldn’t be more excited. But possibly one of the most interesting things about this transition is that, though in many mays it’s a very slow process, there are a few instances in which I feel like I’ve had to make leaps into adulthood. Medicine can be so odd in that way – in our...

1) Where are you located? Washington, DC 2) How old are you? 26 3) What is your job title? Project Coordinator, Executive Office 4) How has the transition been from backpack to briefcase (college to adulthood)? It’s been an adventure. I didn’t graduate with a job. Instead, I moved to New York City and accepted an associate producing internship at a theater for two months—which turned into six months. My aunt kindly let me...

1)Where are you located? San Jose, CA 2) How old are you? 28 3) What is your job title? Founder & CEO of Skool 4) How has the transition been from backpack to briefcase (college to adulthood)? The transition was a blur. The week after I graduated, I started my new job the following Monday; therefore, I wasn’t able to really absorb the fact that I was no longer on a student. I had...